Posted by Gary Schwitzer in Conflicts of interest, Health care journalism, Health care/research ethics, Medical devices
There are many stories journalists could report about conflicts of interest and questions about evidence in the treatment of low back pain, perhaps especially with spinal fusion. We talked about many of these with journalists from the American Society of News Editors in a workshop at the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making in Boston in May.
John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel hammers one of these issues, looking at how Medtronic’s Infuse product “went from revolutionary advance to public health alert.”
Here’s his story on MedPageToday.com.
His entire “Side Effects: Money, Medicine and Patients” series is indexed on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel website.
The image below is from the Journal-Sentinel’s online story.
Overall, this was an easy-to-follow summary. But there was a clear difference between this and a competing Boston Globe story, which did a better job offering context and analysis.
This Boston Globe blog post gave its audience a more thorough understanding of an emerging approach to virtual colonoscopy than the Wall Street Journal.
Longer, but overall not any better, than the coverage from the competing LA Times story. Not thorough enough to explain what this preliminary research actually means for readers–which is not much at this point.
We will not display your name or e-mail address on the site, nor will we share youre-mail address with any third parties.
For site updates and news from Gary, find us on Twitter:
HealthNewsReview: @HealthNewsRevu
Gary Schwitzer: @garyschwitzer
Copyright © 2012 Health News Review
Add Comment
Disclaimer: I welcome comments but will delete those with any kind of product pitch, profanity, personal attacks or those from anyone who doesn’t list what appears to be an actual e-mail address. I will also end any thread of comments that are repetitive. Because I moderate comments, I can’t keep reacting to repeatedly inaccurate or unsubstantiated claims. We don't give medical advice so we won't respond to questions asking for it.